Conventional systems, such as the Episode Treatment Group (ETG) software by Symmetry Health Data System, Inc, various risk adjusters, and other measures of physician service use allow managed care organizations to find rates of utilization of given services, determine relative costs of physician care, and bucket costs into categories such as office visits, pharmacy, and facility use. The conventional systems thus might show that there are differences between medical providers, such as one might be more expensive than another; however, they do not take the necessary steps to address what a managed care organization should work on in order to decrease costs of medical care and improve quality. The conventional systems do not identify what the specific cost drivers are that cause differences between the medical providers. Further, the conventional systems do not present data in a way that is clinically relevant and easy to present in graphic form to facilitate the discussion of medical appropriateness and allow clinical judgment as to whether the service is under utilized, over utilized, or mis-used, based on medical evidence for or against the service in question. In other words, the conventional systems do not connect cost containment to quality improvement.
The conventional approaches therefore require a priori hypotheses about cost drivers and then extensive drilldowns and other data analysis to discover the cost drivers. The user must ask specific questions, hypothesizing which services might be cost drivers, for example: “Find out if lab testing is a factor in hypertension care, and then find which tests and who is using them.” Such analyses typically take a number of hundred person-hours of work, develop over a time frame of weeks to months, and may lead down dead ends. For example, an analysis of hypertension cost drivers took approximately four weeks in real time to complete, and found that pharmacy was the only factor differentiating costs of care among physicians. A comprehensive analysis investigating the cost drivers for a plurality of conditions in a number of different specialties would be quite cumbersome using the conventional methods and the results would likely be out of date when the analysis is completed.
Several references are related to the evaluation and comparison of healthcare providers according to costs, quality of care, and effectiveness. Some of the references are related to determining the proper treatment for a patient. For instance, PCT publication number WO 96/00423 A1 by MEDICODE, INC. compares individual medical practitioners or a group of medical practitioners against a statistical norm or trend. The comparison is made by converting medical providers billing data into a historical database. The application also discusses the determination of episodes of care and providing reports on the results. The application does not compare the services performed by the medical providers to determine what services stand out as the cause for the differences between the medical providers or the groups of medical providers.
U.S. Application publication No. 2002/0111826 A1 by Potter, et al. compares actual costs of episodes of care against budgeted costs to evaluate medical practitioners and to manage health care costs. Potter, et al. does not teach a timely and comprehensive analysis investigating the underlying cost drivers for a plurality of conditions in a number of different specialties.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,254, issued to Lockwood, et al., teaches a process of determining cost effectiveness of physicians in a group and the qualitative performance level of the group by adjusting the episodes of care by severity. Lockwood, et al. does not identify the cost drivers that cause differences between medical providers.
PCT Publication number WO 91/17510 A1 by HEALTHCHEX, INC. describes a means for processing health care services information relative to certain clinical variables, including age, gender, and diagnosis, and then ranking the data into orders of clinical complexity. The system then determines systematic relationships between medical services rendered to patients, clinical complexity, and cost. The system does not determine what the specific cost drivers are that cause differences between medical providers, nor does it address what an managed care organization should do to decrease costs of medical care and improve quality.
A family of U.S. applications and patents and a PCT application based on U.S. Pat. No. 5,835,897, issued to Dennis K. Dang teaches computer-implemented processes of determining the cost-efficiency and service quality of health care providers. The references in the family discuss episode treatment groups (ETGs) and the ETG grouper software. The application does not compare the services performed by the health care providers to determine what services stand out as the cause for the differences between the health care providers or the groups of health care providers.
U.S. application publication No. 2004/0111291 A1 by Dust, et al. teaches a process of identifying patients likely to generate high cost health care and sending patients to proper health care providers to meet certain requirements set by an employer that provides health care benefits. The method does not identify cost drivers for a plurality of conditions in a number of different specialties.
PCT publication number WO 95/19604 A3 by INFORMED ACCESS SYSTEMS, INC. teaches a process for selecting the appropriate treatment for a patient. The publication does not require a diagnosis; the process sorts potential patients into those that do not need professional medical care and those that do. The level and type of care is then determined for those that need treatment. The process does not compare the costs associated with treatments it recommends to determine the differences between groups of medical providers. Further, the publication does not teach a process for recommending particular services for treating a patient with a particular diagnosis.
PCT publication number WO 99/41653 A2 by IAMETER, INCORPORATED and associated U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,657 teach a process for treating a particular patient for a particular illness including the estimation of charges for the treatment and keeping the actual cost of the treatment close to the estimate. The publication does not teach the identification of specific cost drivers that cause differences between medical providers. The publication also does not provide a medical practice blueprint that includes a timely analysis of several conditions in several specialties that can be used to provide recommendations regarding certain practice patterns.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,223,164, issued to Seare, et al., teaches a system for analyzing historical medical provider billings to statistically establish a normative utilization profile wherein a medical provider's utilization profile is compared with a normative profile. Seare creates a model of the cost of a specific medical episode based on historical treatment patterns and a fee schedule and compares various treatment patterns for a particular diagnosis to the model to determine an allegedly cost-effective treatment approach. Seare also identifies medical providers who provide treatment that does not fall within the statistically established treatment patterns or profiles. Seare does not find the general practice patterns and does not describe the specific differences between the treatment patterns and the models.
Therefore, what is needed is a medical practice analysis tool that efficiently uncovers the true underlying cost drivers. Further what is needed is a tool that can provide a timely analysis of several conditions in several specialties to develop a medical practice blueprint, recommending certain practice patterns over others for the several conditions and specialties.